Thank you, SP10

A surprise package arrived just in time for Christmas from my SP10. She sent magazines and chocolate (yum!) for the girls and I all the way from the UK. Thank you so much! I enjoy receiving items that are not familiar to us here in the US.

Just Enough Sugar

Sugar cookie baking gets better and better every year. "This one is almost ready, Mommy. It needs some more 'ellow' on it" Have you ever baked cut-outs with a toddler or two? Oh, how sweet it is.

And just when you're wondering if you've had enough sugar, you find that recipe for the tree Mom made every Christmas morning.

It is made of a yeast-risen sweet dough. Use butter and green sugar on the limbs, form a tree shape, use butter, cinnamon and nuts for the trunk and top it off with a maraschino cherry. I can't remember a Christmas without one of these! Of course there was enough sweet dough to make sticky buns as well. And did I mention Aunt Ruth's toffee?

Beyond Thanksgiving

Since our table of twenty for Thanksgiving, my girls have come to the conclusion that three toddler chairs are not enough at their table. Today I walked into the living room and found seating for nine. Cute, huh?

In knitting news, progress continues on the Christmas stocking for my youngest. All other knitting projects have been set aside in hopes of finishing this by Dec 25. I've abandoned the idea of adding a beaded snowflake to the brim of the hat. I had completed it and frogged it - looked nothing like a snowflake. I will probably end up adding the girl's names in duplicate stitch in order to distinguish between the two socks. But, I'd be happy to entertain more creative ideas.

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving by eating a huge feast at Mom and Dad's with a table of twenty guests. The meal was great. The turkey was tasty - of the fresh, grain-fed variety. I contributed mashed red-curry sweet potatoes - a recipe Mom found in Martha Stewart Living Nov 2007. They've got coconut milk and Thai red-curry paste in them. Believe me, these sweet potatoes are absolutely incredible! Try them sometime. Find the recipe within this article.

I can't talk about Thanksgiving without mentioning Uncle Bob. I see him about once a year - at Thanksgiving. Uncle Bob is a loud, obnoxious sort of guy, but this year he did not get on my nerves as much as he usually does. I could more easily shrug off his comments. One of our conversations went something like this:
Bob: Do you have a job now?
Me: Yes, I work all day long.
Bob: Oh, you're home with the kids. What, you can't get a baby sitter!?

I just left it at that and next thing I know he's asking about the marital status of my parents' minister and shouting about how all divorced clergy ought to be kicked out of the church.

By the way, I took this photo in my folk's yard. I really like the way it shows the fall color.

My Oldest WIP

My Oldest WIP (work in progress) got a facelift. If you remember from a previous post, I knit this sweater back in October 1988 for my niece (now 21 years old!) My sister-in-law kindly found it and sent it to me for my girls to enjoy. I tried the sweater on my youngest the other day and realized I better get to work if I have any hope of her wearing it. She is growing so fast!

Fairly immediately (that's as immediately as a mother of two preschoolers can get), I set to work on salvaging as much yarn as possible from the neck placket. When I frogged the stitches I had picked up for the placket, I discovered that the neckline was still beautifully intact. Believe it or not, I still had the instructions for the sweater, so I was thinking I'd reknit the inset.

While I was working on the sweater yesterday, Marsha was with me and suggested a more up-to-date ribbed v-neck instead of the placket. That sounds easier, will use less yarn and ought to look great I thought. Let me tell you, it's a good thing I hang out with such brilliant people.

I ran with the idea, adding two rows of contrasting color at the border and cranked out the updated sweater last night. What do you think?

A New Tree

This past weekend we planted our new tree - a Bloodgood Japanese Maple. We also put in a couple perennials: a Spirea and a Nandina Domestica. I had tons of fun getting my hands in the dirt and I was reminded just how good that outdoor work feels. I enjoyed the dirt up under my fingernails, the smell of the soil and the cool autumn air under which we worked.

Our landscape plan around our new porch and walkway is finally taking shape. There are alot of plants I want to put in, but we'll take our time and do bit by bit.

Welcome To The World, Little One

I just found out that my friend became a grandmother (for the first time!) earlier this week. He was born on Monday, prematurely weighing in at 4 lbs 10 ozs. Mother and son are doing well, though still in the hospital. I forgot to ask his name.

It's time to knit a baby hat!

Children's Indoor Garden

Saturday we went to Longwood Gardens for the grand opening of the children's indoor garden. The garden was lovely with a childsized seashell-lined passageway and a childsized winding staircase. The children were intriqued by a fountain which was fed by bronze animal mouths from above. That fountain also spewed upward with small blurbs of water which little hands and teenaged-hands found fastinating in their attemt to catch. Occasionally, a child would lean out and look downward, getting gently splashed in the face.

The grand opening of this amazing addition to the world famous Longwood Gardens included a fun-filled schedule: juggler's performance, bubble show, dancing rainforest creatures (by Annie Hickman) and kitemaking. We had a great time! My girls say they liked the insects (rainforest creatures) best!

It is Majestic

My knitting buddies sure like the color of this yarn. Gina, remember when we looked at the ball band for this yarn and it had a name of #589? Your remark was something like "Oooh, aaah, that name does it justice, yes, # 589, drool." Whatever you said had me rolling on the floor with laughter. I've just learned now, that according to Rowan's site, this lovely color #589 does have a name - Majestic.

I finally knit a Moebius I like, color name - Majestic!

Pattern: Cat Bordhi, Simple Moebius from A First Treasury Of Magical Knitting

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, #589 Majestic, .75 skein

Needles: US 2, 26" circular

Start Date: 9/09/07

Finish Date: 10/24/07

Notes: MCO 360 sts, it is more narrow than I'd like; next time knit the whole skein.

It is the correct length for twisting and coming up over the ears - just as I intended!

I may add an edge to make it a bit wider.

Next time I'll knit, then purl so the scarf does not do the center switch from knit stitches to purl stitches. My knitting buddies think that may make the loose centerline less obvious.

Ta Da!

Finally, at the sewing machine, I made the mate to match the first. I'm happy with the result and what a sense of completion!

Morning Glories

For the past couple years, I've planted morning glories in the corner of the yard. This year the plant did particularly well; the opposite side of this fence looks just as lush. Against the fence hangs a rusty old bike frame that I pulled out of the creek (drainage ditch) that runs by our home. I'm an avid bicyclist in my past life and was intruiqued with the piece. My MIL and husband did not share my enthusiasm for the find and as a joke, nailed it prominently to the corner of the fence. "That looks great - perfect!", I said. Now the joke's on them. The bike frame has been hanging there ever since; you just can't see it this year due to the prolific morning glories.

See those ugly white lamp posts behind the beautiful morning glories in the photo to your right? You can't? Good! I hate those posts and I've hated them for the past four years. Thanks to another great idea from Marsha (Marsha has great ideas), this year I planted morning glories to hide the post. Why didn't I ever think of that? I thought to put morning glories in by the fence which now cover my beautiful bike frame.

The first time I planted them from 4" pots, I put them right into the ground at the base of the post. Little bunnies had a feast overnight, next morning, no plants! So, I bought new plants and put them in large pots thinking that maybe having the delicious plants up off the ground would deter the rabbits. I don't know if that's what did it or not. But, it worked.

Astrogeology

Today's commemorative link on Google's home page celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sputnik. It reminded me of my work as a cartographer for the USGS in Flagstaff, AZ from 1986- 1992. I worked in astrogeology mapping Mars using imagery from Viking missions. NASA's Viking Project found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of the surface.


Our team was working on a control point atlas of Mars. I have no idea if that atlas has ever been published. Someday I should contact some of my colleagues there and find out the status of that project.

Checking out USGS's Flagstaff website allowed me to reminisce about the folks I used to work with there. Many of the people are still there. My closest friend at the USGS works with planetary nomenclature. She names new stuff being discovered out there: planets' moons, other small bodies orbitting the sun in our solar system (yep, small bodies is the technical term for stuff such as astroids and comets) and beyond (nebulea and stars) How cool is that?


I worked with an amazing group of people there including Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker - a very kind and lovely couple. Carolyn is the most successful "comet hunter" to date.

Holiday Knits

Here's progress so far on the Christmas stocking I'm knitting for my youngest daughter. There are about 120 charted rows and I've completed 20 rows. It makes the greatest snowman stocking. This post shows the same stocking I made for my older daughter. I want to incorporate some sort of change in the second stocking. I'm thinking a colorful stripe in the hat or a beaded snowflake added to hat brim.
I've got several gifts I'd like to finish in time for Christmas (in order of priority):
This Christmas stocking
Hat for my husband
Miniature stocking ornaments (3 of them!)

Celebrate Socktoberfest 2007

I found Socktoberfest 2007 and count me in. It sounds like fun, huh? Besides it is just the excuse I need to buy yet another skein of sock yarn. I visited BunkyBoBo's shop on Etsy. The seller is new to Etsy and I met her through blogging. She is a great correspondent, fellow knitter and now new found friend. Her handdyed yarns look luscious; I'm eyeing up Pumpkin Patch and Basilisk. For socktoberfest it has gotta be Pumpkin Patch. don't you think?

Ravelry Invitation

I just received my invitation to Ravelry! I'm psyched. I can't explore it now - headed out to enjoy a beautiful day at a fall festival.

100 Things About Me

This is my 100th post. It's going to be 100 things about me, I first saw the 100 things posted at Gina's blog. Here goes:

1. I think way too much. Therefore, it'll take me forever to do this.
2. My goal is to complete this list in 100 days or less.

Terrible Twos

My baby will be two years old on Saturday and it feels terrible. I'm not ready for it. I'm just not ready for her to be out of diapers and wanting to do things all on her own. I don't want her to grow up.

While in Burlington, VT this summer a man in a parking garage saw us, smiled and commented "The twos are terrific, all that discovery of independence!" I think I'll always remember him saying that. Think about it. It is an amazing time. Right now, it feels painful.

Maybe if I never finish the 2T-3T sweater I'm knitting for her, she'll never grow up.

Cloth Baby Shoes

I have not sewn anything for a long time, but when Marsha turned me towards this pattern for Cloth Baby Shoes, I pulled out the sewing machine. They are so cute, I just had to make 'em. I don't even have a baby in mind for these.

"It's Art"

Today my four-year-old painted this, "It's for you", she said excitedly, running up next to me, painting in hand. I stooped down next to her for a closer look.

Me: Tell me about it.
T: It's Art.

Baby Socks

The baby socks are done. I think they turned out great and pair nicely with the simple hat. Not much else in knitting news, progress is slow on the Debbie Bliss jacket. It's alot of stockinette stitch with baby cashmerino on size 3 needles - a dream to work with, but it's taking me forever.